Yesterday was a travel day. We arose at 4 AM and left for the airport before 5:30. We flew to Los Angeles, had a quick lunch, and then flew on to Hawaii where we will enjoy a few days in the sun.

Speaking of the sun, it has not arisen here. It is now 4:44 AM. I stayed in bed as long as I could. That turned out to be 3:30. A nap looms somewhere in the day ahead. So far, Baby Lucy is managing the travel well. She let out a wee cry when I was preparing coffee, but slumbers on even as a cacophony of shrill bird cries takes place in the courtyard. They apparently are, like King David in one of his psalms, “awakening the dawn.”

My first time in Hawaii was when I was sixteen years old. We returned when our daughter was in college. Now we are here again enjoying cooler weather than what we left behind in Texas. Also, we have a really nice view out of our room. The photo nearby and today’s verses reflect one another.

It is worth noticing a couple of things in these verses. First, “Even in old age they still produce fruit; they remain vital and green.”

We can flourish, remaining vital and green, as long as we live. How is this possible? When we walk with God through the seasons of life, there is a deepening, an expansion of our souls. Yes, as Moses reminds us in Psalm 90, we are quite quickly moving back toward our dusty beginnings. Even so, what remains when our skin and bones wear down and out, lives, really lives! Our strengthened souls endure forever.

Second, vitality is a choice. Some people die a kind of death long before their hearts stop beating. They choose not to think new thoughts. They accept no new challenges. They cease adventuring.

This kind of life cannot honor our Father in Heaven, can it? Even when limitations increasingly limit us, let us expand our hearts and minds as we remember and as we ponder what has been and what yet will be.

When God calls us home, let us be found thinking his thoughts along with him. Let our hearts beat in sync with his. May our past find itself wrapped in his grace, goodness, mercy, kindness, and his faithful love which endures forever. May we receive his gift of ultimate vitality, eternal greening, and ultimate flowering.

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I will live a life of vitality and growth to the very end and the very beginning again.

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Our Father, empower me to live a life of vitality. I do not want the kind of vitality commercials and prescriptions promise which require endless warning labels. I want the kind of vitality that comes from walking with you. I want to know you and experience you through every season of life. Amen.